Liz & Leila Willingham
149 episodes listed below
Family business, told from the inside.
It Runs In The Family is an interview series about the pressure, pride, and practical reality of family enterprise. Liz and Leila Willingham speak with founders, parents, children, siblings, and successors building companies shaped by shared history.
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It Runs In The Family is an interview series about companies built through kinship as much as strategy. Liz and Leila Willingham speak with families who work together, inherit together, disagree together, and keep showing up for the business anyway. The show's subject is not entrepreneurship in the abstract. It is the daily texture of a parent-child restaurant, a son-and-mum vineyard, a farming family turning surplus strawberries into snacks, a locksmith, an organic childrenswear brand, a sportswear company shaped by a mother and daughter, and a dairy trying to make cheese with purpose. The conversations are warm without becoming soft. Guests talk about role confusion, risk, succession, long learning curves, family recipes, practical innovation, sustainability, and the tension between personal closeness and professional accountability. Short stories carry a lot of weight. Wen describes being the visible face of Xi Home Dumplings while crediting the wider family behind the food. Ryan and Fiona talk through the research, patience, and nerves involved in planting vines and waiting years for a first wine. Sandy and Ola show how care for land and produce can become a second business through freeze drying and pulse technology. Harry and Jordan illustrate the mixed reality of a long-running trade, where finance, keys, safes, and counter service can all land in the same week. Jo's Kite Clothing story adds values, softness, colour, and the pressure of sustaining an independent brand. Sarah and Charlotte's TLC episode brings body positivity and women's activewear into the family-business frame. Greg and Nicky connect legacy, B Corp ambition, and cheesemaking craft. Through all of it, the show keeps returning to one question: what changes when the people around the boardroom table are also family? The answer is rarely neat. That is the appeal. It Runs In The Family is best for listeners who enjoy candid founder stories, practical lessons from independent businesses, and the emotional machinery behind companies that are meant to last.
Made for: For founders, successors, independent operators, and business-curious listeners interested in how families build and sustain companies together. It especially suits people who prefer grounded case studies over polished startup mythology.
What sets it apart: The show pairs business questions with family dynamics, letting operational detail and emotional honesty share equal space. Its range of guests makes family enterprise feel varied, practical, and specific rather than sentimental.
Hello! We're Liz & Leila Willingham and welcome to "It Runs In The Family". We're the mother and daughter duo working within the public relations and communications agency, Liz Lean PR. Running a business is hard - really hard. Every business has its challenges and it's own ups and downs - but in a family business, this is often exaggerated by the willingness to speak your mind. But it also has some huge advantages that the corporate cultures just can't compete with. In this podcast, featuring a different family business guest in each episode, we're going to be digging into the...
This is the show that makes hiring Mum sound both inspired and worth a very careful lunch.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A grounded family-business story where inherited recipes and new ideas share the same table.
The episode treats Wenjun Xiang's story as a family-business portrait with a clear center of gravity. Xi Home Dumplings began with her mum when she was around 17 or 18, her dad later joined, and the tension between shared ownership and daily friction gives the story its shape.
A steady, practical family-business story with vineyard stakes.
This episode finds its charm in restraint, following the hard work behind a family vineyard in Pembrokeshire rather than leaning on easy romance.
A family farm turns imperfect strawberries into a grounded story of food waste, technology, and generational change.
A glut of strawberries opens into a grounded look at how a family farm can turn imperfect produce into a second line of work. Sandy Booth sets out how New Forest Fruit Snacks uses pulse technology and freeze drying to preserve smell, taste, and nutrition, while Ola's role gives…
Rob Walling on bootstrapped SaaS growth, plateaus, and exits — with founders who lived them.
Abbey Ashley's playbook for turning your job skills into a virtual assistant business.
SaaS operators on scaling, pricing and AI, metrics included.
Alex Blumberg interviews guests like Megan Phelps-Roper and Shane McAnally about failure and reinvention.
Tim and Ria Ball started Bar Boy in Exmouth after Tim's 2019 margarita resolution became a lockdown cocktail business.
Liz and Leila Willingham record at We Out Here Festival in Wimborne St.
Veryan Palmer explains why the Headland reinvests every year's profits into a 125-year-old coastal building.
Wenjun Xiang, founder of Xi Home Dumplings, says she launched the business with her mother at 17 or 18 and later brought her father in, turning family recipes into a London restaurant group with three sites.
Fiona and Ryan Mouncey trace Velfrey Vineyard from a Pembrokeshire field to an award-winning Welsh wine business, with the family’s publishing company and trade magazines providing the commercial groundwork.
It Runs in the Family features Sandy Booth and his daughter Ola discussing New Forest Fruit Company, a New Forest farm that grew from 700 tons of strawberries in 2007 to more than 5,000 tons annually.
A mother-daughter duo interviews another family-run creative collective about their experiences in a family business.
Liz and Leila Willingham interview Jo Sprague, founder of Kite Clothing, about building an organic children's wear brand over 18 years.
This episode interviews the fifth-generation brothers running a century-old locksmith business in Sheffield, discussing their roles and the family business dynamics.
Mother-daughter hosts interview Sarah and Charlotte, founders of TLC fitness clothing, about their family business journey and body positivity.
Liz and Leila Willingham interview Greg and Nicky Parsons about running Sharpham Cheese, a family-owned B Corp dairy.
A mother-daughter duo interviews the CEO and his daughter of a 79-year-old wallpaper company about their family business journey.
The 100th episode features a candid family business story, highlighting the journey and challenges of running a family enterprise.
A mother-daughter duo interviews a family running a toy business, discussing their legacy and challenges.
Hosts Liz and Leila Willingham interview the founders of New Role, a platform for hiring board-level talent in family businesses.
Mother-daughter PR agency owners interview the grandson of a watchmaking founder about family business legacy and values.
This episode features an interview with mother-daughter co-founders Ali and Emily Warburton of Pow Foods, discussing their journey launching a female-led BCorp catering company focused on healthy, sustainable workplace food.